Scandal Figure Viewed City Hall As Big Deal

March 02, 1986|By John Kass and Dean Baquet. Thomas M. Burton and Douglas Frantz contributed to this article.

From the moment he started work in City Hall, John E. Adams was trying to cut a deal.

While employed as one of the Washington administration`s top officials, he helped two business associates with their plan to buy a steel company that would seek government contracts. When they could not find money for the project, Adams dusted off their proposal and sought financing on his own.

He solicited a campaign contribution for an alderman from one company seeking work from the city`s revenue department, where he was deputy director, company officials claim. And he asked another company for ``walking-around money`` when he traveled to New York on city business, officials of that firm said.

He contacted people in the administration to help him raise money for a real estate deal. And when that plan fell through, in the summer of 1984, he tried to finance the purchase with money from a city contractor.

And it was that arrangement that entangled Adams, a relatively unknown, 30-year-old high-ranking bureaucrat, and the Washington administration itself in a widening scandal involving suspected corruption in Chicago`s government. This picture of Adams now slowly emerging from a federal investigation of the government contrasts with the way Mayor Harold Washington described him when he was hired in June, 1984.

``Mr. Adams` credentials are unsurpassed,`` Washington said in a press release then. ``He joins an outstanding team of financial experts in city government and we are fortunate that he brings wide experience in municipal taxation and accounting practices.``

What the mayor did not say is that Adams` appointment had been made, according to City Hall sources, without the knowledge of the city`s top fiscal official; that Adams had been fired from one accounting job, according to a former employer; and that his appointment to a sensitive city post might have been influenced as much by political considerations as by his credentials.

Adams` hiring undercuts the mayor`s persistent complaint that he has struggled to replace inefficient holdovers from previous administrations with nonpolitical employees. In the case of the deputy revenue director`s job

--which pays more than $50,000 and involves the increasingly important responsibility to collect fees and taxes--Washington chose an untested political follower with a spotty work record rather than an experienced administrator.

After Adams was hired, various City Hall sources said, he spent much of his time pushing his own investments, and was criticized by contractors and coworkers for soliciting money and gifts and failing to be objective in dealing with contractors.

In the meantime, he unknowingly assumed a key role in a corruption case, according to administration officials and sources familiar with the investigation.

He backed a large New York collection agency, Systematic Recovery Service Inc., in its efforts to win a lucrative Chicago bill-collection contract from the revenue department, these sources said, after accepting money from the firm.

In January, after details of the inquiry were made public, the administration fired Adams, declaring that he had accepted a bribe.

Adams and his attorney, Patrick Tuite, have declined to discuss the accusation, or other aspects of the case.

The story of how Adams landed an important job in the Washington administration, and of his performance once he got it, offers insight into behind-the-scenes workings of the present city government. It also shows how one high-ranking official can influence the outcome of lucrative city contracts.

At tiny, predominantly white St. John`s University in Minnesota, Adams, who grew up on the South Side of Chicago, was active in black student groups. A hard worker, he seemed driven to win the approval of his superiors, or the people he viewed as powerful, according to psychology professor Norman James, the only black faculty member at St. John`s.

James said that Adams was particularly adept at figuring out the most powerful person in a group and latching on to him. But he sometimes became too dependent on these mentors, James said.

``Given John`s need for constant reassurance by older men and mentors,``

James said, ``I don`t think he had the personal autonomy to figure things out for himself.``

Given this, Adams` friends at St. John`s say they are not surprised he became a bureaucrat.

In 1977, after graduation, Adams took a $13,600-a-year auditing job with Arthur Young & Co., the accounting firm, according to his resume and records provided by a source familiar with his work history. From there, he leaped to smaller, black-owned accounting firms in Chicago, increasing his salary and responsibility along the way, until April, 1983, when he was fired from Barrow, Aldridge & Co, according to Thomas Barrow, founder of the minority-owned firm that bears his name.